Alright, this you won't believe. First let me address one thing in Titus's last post. Ingraham is in fact still on the air, she's in the top five in terms of ratings, has a new best selling book (it was #1 on Amazon for several weeks entitled Power to the People), and she was one of 5 national hosts invited to the private meet and greet with the PoTUS (along with names such as Hannity and Beck). She precedes Rush starting at 10am East Coast time on most of the stations she is on. Now, I tell you all that not because I'm promoting her, it's just that I see you have no time for talk radio anymore and I find that unfortunate. As you know, along with blogs like the Bund, AM radio is perhaps the best representation of a "national discussion" on the pressing issues of the day. Also, perhaps because of the large market I'm in I have access to nearly ever nationally syndicated radio program out there, allowing me to "participate" in that discussion routinely. In the course of one business day I am exposed - should I choose - to Ingraham, Rush, Hannitty, Glenn Beck (who really is a funny guy and by far the most "entertaining" of the bunch), Savage (4 hrs worth), Mark Levine, Micheal Medved, Jerry Doyle, Rusty Humphries, Hugh Hewitt, Bill Bennett, Tammy Bruce (the former pres of the CA chapter of NOW and a convert to conservatism obviously), and Jim Bohannan (whose show I don't care for at all) . Quite the conservative manifesto huh? I should note that I do listen to NPR on the weekend - but that's for A Prarie Home Companion - the only credible news on that station comes from Lake Wobbagon. So, you should perhaps request an Ipod for Christmas or satellite radio - especially with the hours you work, and with the pod casts you could listen to most of the above mentioned shows any time you want.
Alright - to what prompted my post and the subject header ...
Did anyone catch the Dem debate from last night in Philadelphia PA? Your neck of the woods T, but perhaps you were at work. As you might expect it was a parade of one socialist program after another being championed by these candidates, although for the first time the other candidates decided to go after Hillary, finally. The highlights were perhaps when Edwards claimed that in his first year as president he would have all combat troops out of Iraq, to which Hillary (shockingly so) responded, "I don't know how you combat Al Qeada if you're not willing to fight them in the field." My jaw dropped, and I quickly realized that she was the only Dem presidential hopeful who could get away with saying that in her party, and not get excoriated - mostly because she's not a "hopeful" at all, the nomination is hers and the rest are simply auditioning for VP. Also, this nonsense that NY Gov Spitzer is promoting came up and Hillary got slammed by Russert. He asked do you, as the NY Senator, support your govenor's plan to issue drivers licenses to illegal immigrants? Three times he rephrased the question and three times she gave a non-answer claiming, "we should have passed the comprehensive immigration reform." 72% of New Yorkers (the state) oppose this, that's why the non-answer. BUT, here is the big one, the one which held the sheer entertainment value of an SNL bit. Apparently Shirley McClain - the actress and known paranormal guru - is God Mother to Dennis Kucinich's daughter. She wrote a book recently in which she claims that Dennis once spotted a UFO over her home while visiting. So, Russert couldn't resist (I'm paraphrasing, but this is very close) -
Russert:"Congressman Kucinich, let me now turn to a much different but serious issue. Shirley McClain claims in her new book that you once spotted a UFO over her home. Did you, and do you believe there s life outside of earth?
Kucinich: Yes. (chuckles in the audience) Yes, I saw a UFO, which is after all an Unidentified Flying Object. And I suppose that more people have spotted UFO's in this country than approve of this president (chuckles again, although the actual number of UFO spotters in the US is 14%, Bush's numbers are 32%, and more to the point the Congressional approval rating is 11% - Richards, the only Governor on stage, would have done well to point that out).
Now keep in mind, Kucinich just days earlier publicly questioned Bush's mental health! Saying something to the effect that there are millions of people in our country that suffer frommental disabilities and with the decisions the administration has made we should be questioning his mental well being! That's rich! HIS mental health?? At least when he addresses the issue of aliens he means Hispanics, not Klingons!!
Russert then asked Obama if he believed in UFO's and extraterrestial life and he said, "I don't know if they exist Tim, I do know that life exists here on earth and we need to do a better job taking care of that life." Again, chuckles in the crowd.
Post debate Chris Matthews (the debate was hosted by MSNBC) asked Richards, govenor of New Mexico, that since his state was home to Roswell he must have spent some time promoting it for tourism purposes. And instead of avoiding that topic all together (like Obama, who had the best answer of the bunch in that it wasn't insane) he said, "Yes Chris, of course I've done that to steer tourism dollars to my state, but more seriously the government has never fully released what happened there and they should come clean." Matthews erupted with a hearty "HA", and added, "let me get this straight, you are accusing the government of the United States of covering up an alien encounter?" Richards responded, "I'm just saying they should get all the documentation out there and come clean, that's all."
Alright - does anything occur to you here?
We are at war war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and around the globe wherever terrorism exists. Iran is pushing daily towards war with the US and Israel. N. Korea is trying to send fissile material to Syria. We have thousands of "tier 3" hardened terrorists in our nation at this moment. The southern border is a disaster, challenging our very sovereignty. Health care for the uninsured stands unaddressed. And China is using every American dollar spent in this trade deficit to arm their 10 million soldiers to the teeth. And what becomes a topic of discussion AMONG PEOPLE WHO WANT TO BE THE F****ING PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES?
ET!!!!!!!
For the love of everything holy and good, what has happened to this party? Any candidate with an ounce of presidential material within them would have said: Tim, what the hell are you talking about? The world's got its pants down around it's ankles and you're asking me this? I'm embarrassed for you and your network, and I won't even dignify that question with a serious answer. What else would you like to ask me?
But they didn't, and he did, and they all look like the intellectually immature dopes that they are.
FR
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2 comments:
Ok, I don't want this in any way to sound like a defense of the Dem candidates or anything but I do have a question.
At the end of Ryan's post he gave an example of the answer he would have liked to have heard. The "embarrassed for you and your network" was superb. And brings into focus the primary problem with 1) the debate and 2) the issues at hand.
If the moderator, and thus the network running the debate is not going to field relevent, water tight questions, (i.e. the kind that one cannot "unanswer" without being blatant about it) then is that the fault of the candidates present?
For a lot of these lesser known candidates, they got to be there for the free exposure. For the big fish, they probably agreed to come months and months ago when they weren't so "big". I didn't watch, I'll admit, because at the time I felt I'd learn nothing new, and I see now that I'm correct. But seriously.
Who's the bigger ass? The candidates, or the network?
In a word - BOTH. However, my expectations are higher for those seeking the presidency then for those in the media, so I assign them the "bigger ass" award to the candidates. Anyone of them could have used their alloted 60 second response time (which is a sham of a debate forum in the first place)to knock the moderators for such silliness - they didn't.
But that's not a defense of the media. The sheer fact that Kucinich was even there denotes their desire for entertainment value rather than a serious discussion of the issues - he's polling around zero, literally, so why have him there outside of KNOWING he'll say something goofy and help the ratings? The kicker is that EVERY single dem candidate, as a group, canceled their scheduled debate with FOX a few months ago citing that FOX shouldn't be taken seriously as a news organization because of their conservative bias. So they go with the left-frfiendly MSNBC and end up with questions on UFO's - ya, now that's "serious" isn't it?
No doubt the moderator is partly to blame, but presidential candidates should be held to a higher standard - they should have shown leadership and called a spade a spade by reciting my "emberrassed for you" line.
FR
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